Fruit & Vegetables – Try a Rainbow of Colours for Maximum Benefit

You don’t need to eat the same old orange carrots, green spinach or yellow onions as there are so many new varieties of fruit and vegetables now available in supermarkets and to the home gardener. Choose from purple or yellow carrots, orange peppers or beetroot, yellow courgettes and black or yellow tomatoes. Each colour means a different nutrient with protective effects against toxins or cancer, or with benefits for our eyes or blood cells.

Top Ten Fruit and Vegetables for Good Health

While all fruit and vegetables contain important vitamins and nutrients with potential benefits, there are some which are star performers because they give us so many of the elements vital to our health.

This list of the top ten makes a good starting point for a healthy diet, but add as many other different colour fruit and vegetables as you like for maximum health:

1. Broccoli or Kale – very good sources of folic acid, vitamin A, vitamin C
2. Carrots – contain the antioxidant called beta-carotene which is turned into vitamin A in the body
3. Leeks – contain folic acid, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, beneficial sulphur compounds and antioxidants
4. Onions – have antibacterial and antiseptic properties and contain several antioxidants
5. Peas – high in potassium, folic acid, vitamins A, B1 and C and soluble fibre which helps to lower cholesterol
6. Spinach – rich in fibre, vitamin A, vitamin C and lutein which is important for healthy eyes
7. Soya Beans – for protein
8. Sweet Peppers – red, yellow, orange or green peppers have different nutrients all with health benefits
9. Tomatoes – high in vitamin C, beta-carotene and a substance called lycopene with anticancer properties
10. Watercress – contains vitamins A, B1 and B6, and is rich in calcium, iron and zinc

Variety is the Spice of Life

By including a wide range of different coloured fruit and vegetables in your meals every day, you will discover one of the secrets to maintaining good health. Eating them raw or cooked in different ways adds different tastes and textures to your diet.

Cooking destroys some nutrients such as vitamin C but makes others more available to the body such as lycopene in tomatoes. A mix of raw, juiced and cooked fruit and vegetables will maximise the benefits you can get from these foods, as well as making your diet more varied and interesting.

Growing your own is the best way to get your ‘five a day’, and with crops picked fresh from your garden you will enjoy the maximum benefits of all the different nutrients in these foods, as well as the satisfaction of producing them yourself.